


The Quirkless Manifesto

by Yuilhan



Series: Boku no Hero Academia AU's and OC Stories [2]
Category: Multi-Fandom (...maybe...), Original Work, Varied - Fandom, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Activist Midoriya Izuku, Author Midoriya Izuku, Biographic AU, I don't even know if thats a thing, Minor Character Death, Plot Bunnies - Freeform, Quirkless Midoriya Izuku, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 19:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15420147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuilhan/pseuds/Yuilhan
Summary: Perhaps this book won’t sell very well (or at all), but then again, maybe – maybe – it will. I just want to be heard finally. That is all that I ask; for you to hear my voice, without prejudice, and allow me to hold my head high without fear because of what – who – I am.For I am Quirkless.





	1. I AM

**Author's Note:**

> Just an idea I was playing around with that turned into a seven-thousand word fic. It's ended up in the Plot Bunny Dump, and with a bit of polishing I decided to publish them on AO3. For this story alone, there are four chapters in total. If you're interested in using this idea, feel free to develop on from it. Just let me know and credit this original piece if you do decide to use "The Quirkless Manifesto" at all.

****

* * *

 

 

**I.M. Dekiru**

**_The Quirkless Manifesto_ **

 

First published by Beidā Books Ltd 1977

Beidā Books is a division of Ginga Teikoku Publishing Ltd,

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXx, XXXXXXXXX, Tokyo, 112 - XXXX

Text copyright © Dekiru 2XXX

ISBN: XXX X XX XXXXXX X

Printed and bound in Japan by HaHa Ltd, XXXXXXXXXX

 

Conditions of Sale

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade

 or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without

the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other

than that which it is published and without a similar condition including

this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

* * *

 

 

 

_To Midoriya Inko._

_Thank you._

 

 

 

Manifesto

(n)

/manɪˈfɛstəʊ/

  1. A public declaration of policy and aims, especially one



issued before an election by a political party or candidate.[1]

  1. A written statement of beliefs, aims and policies of an agenda. **  
**



* * *

 

**I AM**

* * *

 

 I am born. The world does not cease spinning on its axis. As far as those under the age of four will ever know, we were once born equal.

I am a toddler now, and while the world around me is still new, obvious divides still appear. My mother can lift me with no trouble. Sometimes not even using her hands or allowing me to cling to her hip and neck with my small fingers – often sticky from grasping the afternoon snack she makes for me. That isn’t all though. Objects float and career through the house and she regales me with tales all about the dragon who wooed a princess in my pre-bedtime stories. The dragon is my father; and he has left the princess in an ivory tower forever. Maybe my mother needs a knight to make her smile? To rescue her? Maybe that’s me?

The strangeness continues: a woman we pass on Thursdays during the usual trip to the supermarket smiles as I wave to her expectantly – her wide grin crackles as sparks dance and zip across her teeth. Her smile is electrifying, but I will eventually see better.

I am but three when one wide smile changes my life forever. It is intoxicating to my young form to watch him huddle injured people into his arms – smile stretching impossibly in size, hair bushy, every square inch of him screamed ‘I am a Hero!’ The people he had rescued were stray lambs and to them he was, and remains, their most gracious saviour; shepherding them to safety and Japan to peaceful times. All I can think, as I watch it play on the evening news after dinner whilst my mother doses in her chair, and again and again and again on our small computer, is that I want to be like that. How great would it be to help someone and be able to just smile the entire time? To be a symbol of something beyond straightforward comprehension?

I am four, and a boy I know is showered by both the praise he receives and the tinkling, burning sparks his palms produce. Part of me praises him too: the naïvely happy section of my brain that lures me in with thoughts such as ‘That is so cool’, ‘I want a cool Quirk too’, and the classic that is ‘My Quirk is coming real soon!’ Another part of me, the one that showcases my fledgling maturity and logicality, reasons that this child always had sweaty hands. My fingers would slip through his when we walked home together; slick and clammy palms meeting soft, supple skin and never finding common ground.

The sweat creates the spark, and I marvel at my discovery after weeks of looking and learning – of becoming the outside observer to this boy’s exclusive lifestyle. He has changed, and no longer wants to lead me home each afternoon now.

_Fine_ , the maturing – petulant – side of me contends. _It was always kind of disgusting, anyway._

I am four when people magically begin their lives. Before the age of five we are all two-dimensional, equal, colourless beings, and everything changes with the magic number four. With strange power comes an even strange new technicolour identity. I am also four – just four – when I am told to give up. Told that my world will always be grey in comparison to the splendour of colour everyone else receives. When I am left behind.

I want my magical change. I want my chance to help the world. My Quirk will come, and I do not listen to the stern doctor as he crushes my dream.

Perhaps I should have.

After ages eight, nine and ten – the latter, six years after being diagnosed as ‘Quirkless’ – did I finally reason that maybe I should give in after all. Yet still, I persisted on a pipedream. I am taunted for it, yes, and my childhood friend becomes the instigator of my misery (his clammy hands scorch my skin through my school uniform most days), but that naivety in me from oh so long ago refuses to die.

I am barely fourteen and becoming a miracle statistic when I am told that my troubles will end should I gracefully launch myself from the school’s rooftop. I have lived a spectacularly long life for what I ‘am’. Not human, something lesser than that. For a while, I consider it. I consider joining the rest of my fallen kin. Really, _really_ consider it. The thoughts end abruptly with the blast of a miniature explosion, the torn, singed exterior of a cherished notebook and my knowing that despite all of these forgotten people being in the same situation as myself, I can’t find any solidarity to them in me. Then the sludge comes, and I wish I’d taken the cowardly leap.

A Villain composed of slurry and slime manhandles my limp form, intruding my body inside and out, and I could do nothing to stop it from happening. There is a rescue – of course there is, my city crawls with Heroes to this very day – but I am not fully conscious of it. The sensation of heaving gunk from my lungs, a hand slapping my face, and words shattering my heart are burned into my mind forever; as irreproachable as All Might’s scrawling signature in my singed notebook.

I am fifteen when a respectable high school – not the best the country has to offer, because Yuuei was an unattainable, beautiful, _cursed_ dream – accepts me into their fold, and once again I am the little Quirkless fish lost in the expansive ocean; left to the mercy of the big bad sharks. I am fifteen when something shifts, as subtle as they said tectonic plates move shortly before an earthquake shakes the ground.

At eighteen, I find that if I keep pushing on then maybe, just maybe, I may find a niche for myself and the world won’t push back. Quirks are only useful for certain occupations if they meet certain criteria. Not everyone who doesn’t have a Quirk based around healing can work in a hospital; we few 20% of the world’s population can easily sneak through the academic cracks and graduate with a Degree in Medicine, because we are versatile. Malleable in a way that the Quirk-privileged are not.  It takes longer, and it is far less instinctual to those who don’t have ‘the upper hand’, but it is doable. An acquaintance of mine from the hazy ages of nineteen to twenty-three has taught me that. Their practice remains unblemished and in high regard, even after all these years, and he’s unfortunately not of this world anymore.

I am no longer friendless during University. Few people care about their image when they’re swimming in deadlines and you’ve just completed the obligatory study group coffee run at two in the morning – especially my housemates during finals week.

Nearing twenty-two years of age, and I’m struggling. It’s different from the involuntary numbness of being engulfed – of having someone try to use you like a glorified costume. It’s not that kind of breathless struggle, but it is so very similar too. There is always a degree of panic and then, suddenly, a calm. It’s like the sun parting through the clouds after a particularly vicious storm; the feeling that everything moves on around you even if you kick up a fuss like the rippling thunderclouds or the lashing rainfall. Might as well just relax near then end and be resigned to it all, yeah?

The same can be said of me writing this down finally, after many years of deliberating and starting manuscripts and then having an impromptu bonfire. I’m past being scared now, and some of the passages in this book have never passed my lips before (even in confidence or to Officials) – have sat unprinted in an obscure folder on my computer for over a decade, redundant. No longer. I do not care, because my life is now in a period of clarity after a very long storm. A select few who read this might find some of my stories will jog their memory, but only a few. I do not expect to change hearts and minds, as I don’t expect this book to sell very well at all. But I am not afraid to publish it anymore.

I worked varied and oddly timed shifts to supplement my learning in my twenties. Funding would only go so far, and Postgraduate study was anything but cheap. The pattern from four years earlier – keep pushing through each day – becomes a mantra. Making it to the end of the week, completing each assignment set, each tedious shift and unruly customer, of not having enough money to live comfortably on after I pay the bills, consumes my focus for the next two years.

I manage, somehow. The shiny-new Masters Degree awarded to me is a hollow accomplishment, and I may or may not get myself into some trouble that night after the graduation ceremony. I can neither confirm or deny, because I’m still not sure what happened myself other than waking up in a dumpster with a bloodied nose and half the local bar’s brew clinging to my clothes.   

At the age of twenty-four, I find stable employment. It’s a breath of fresh air to the polyester uniforms and busted air-conditioning units in the convenience stores I worked in, and a far cry from the quiet hush of the University library I cherished studying in – surrounded by the names of dear friends as I pass by their assigned stack and run my fingers down their spines. Now I’m expected to suit up and smile like All Might himself as I’m tugged from one stack of paperwork to the other: and I cry in my head ‘My life in Academia and pissing off government officials is going to waste. What was the point of the last six years if all I’m going to do is this?’

The tie I wear is sloppily knotted, which irks my employer something chronic, and I think, ‘Good. You, Sir, are an arse. Let me slightly inconvenience you, it’ll make me smile later when my working day has ended, and cat videos can’t suffice.’  My tie is slowly suffocating me day by day, along with the stiffly starched collar of my shirt.

I have enough saved in my bank account to finally walk out of my job a year later, spittle decorating my cheeks as my bo– _ex_ -boss, screams and belittles me; face flushed indignantly as I politely tell him to shove his job somewhere dark and unsanitary. With how he talked to my ex-colleagues, he’d regurgitate it two or so minutes after insertion when the shock wore off, and the verbal abuse would continue in my absence when a new pencil pusher joined their ranks.

What a place to work! What time to be alive and considered sub-human!

However, I would miss the pernickety photocopier. It was a constant source of amusement and time-killing whenever it threw a tantrum; I was called on a lot to fix Bob M (because it was always _jamming!)_ and was heralded an office Hero, if only for seven minutes every two or so days.

While I could live comfortably for a bit on what I had, I kept odd jobs to supplement my savings and to prolong my time. Just a few hours here and there – mainly the shifts no one else would work willingly. I could put up with a few air-conditioning-less shifts at a convenience store and the frequent attempts of robbery that took place (precisely) every Tuesday evening. In some ways, it was enjoyable, and the quiet nightshifts gave me plenty of time to document everything you’re currently reading.  

I’m twenty-eight now, and while I still have a lot of living to do, my life has so far been anything but quiet. I’m no longer the enamoured child, longing adolescent, or the jaded teenager. I no longer believe that I can quietly dip my head in submission because of my genetics in the same way that people take no notice of the messages inside fortune cookies. That is, I’m past caring and allowing other people to dictate my life. Hell, just because I dislike the system so much doesn’t mean I can’t admire Heroes or Quirks. I just want to make a difference is all.

Perhaps this book won’t sell very well (or at all), but then again, maybe – _maybe_ – it will. I just want to be heard finally. That is all that I ask; for you to hear my voice, without prejudice, and allow me to hold my head high without fear because of what – _who_ – I am.

For I am Quirkless.

* * *

[1] https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/manifesto


	2. ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL: THE GOLDILOCKS MODEL

* * *

**ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL: THE GOLDILOCKS MODEL**

* * *

 

I’ve discussed this multiple times throughout the years – the first of these occasions was when I was only four. The physician was looking for a simple way to explain my “condition” (his words, not mine) to me, and my mother helpfully intoned that I was fascinated by Western fairy tales for the moment. Only because the characters in those stories were Heroes, in their own way, and I was starting to realise just how harsh reality could be.

So, the physician told me of what it was like when one discovered their Quirk – poking and prodding me with his spindly fingers and his words.

“You should probably give up,” he said, and mumbled something adult-sounding to my mother about my feet of all things. Honestly, illogical power can be sensed through a mere toe joint? If it wasn’t scientifically proven, then I’d have laughed myself silly for the next twenty-four years. The physician turned to me; his eyes momentarily flittered skywards, as though he was about to pass out. Only now do I realise he was thinking on the fly – looking to the heavens for inspiration.

“Izuku – can I call you Izuku?” My mother had to nudge me from my shock, and I squeaked out a ‘Yes’. “You know about Goldilocks? And the three bears?”

I nodded. Mum and I had read that one earlier in the week. Something about the story just unsettled me, and now I was probably going to learn as to why I’d felt like that.

The physician continued. “Think of Quirks like Goldilocks’ story, Izuku. Some Quirks are too big for most people to handle, and others are too small. But the Quirk assigned to you – if you had one – would be just right. Now, I don’t know what being Quirkless will be like for you…” Here his eyes drifted to a fairly morose-looking pamphlet, and I presume, seeing how his fingers twitched, that he was going to hand one to my mother discreetly on our way out. “But you may never get to feel that ‘just right’ feeling, Izuku. Do you understand that?”

Of course I bloody understood. I had ears, and I was old enough to hold coherent conversation with people I felt comfortable around – chiefly my Saint of a mother. I’d known what he’d meant from the moment he’d said, ‘give up’. What I didn’t get is how he had to rub it in my face with children’s stories; did he want to crush my spirit on top of my only redeeming chance to have a social life – also known as not being a Quirkless freak – and becoming the neighbourhood pariah?

Obviously not, because he waited for me to nod numbly before we were dismissed from his examination room altogether. He slipped the pamphlet into Mum’s hand, just as I had anticipated. She hid it immediately in her bag, and again in a place she thought I wouldn’t find once we got home. I found it a few months later. I’d doggedly searched for it from under her notice, and finally I discovered it crumpled amongst the waste papers ready for recycling.

We didn’t waste paper in our household, mainly because I filled every scrap I could find with my notes and sketches and jammed them inside an already bulging notebook. I slid the pamphlet between the same, bulging pages and scurried off to my room having successfully recovered it from the recycling. With my mediocre reading skill, I was only young after all, I found it was about some kind of health – ‘men-tall’ nearly five-year-old me read slowly – and what to do in the event that someone you knew wanted to harm themselves. Rather, how to spot those signs. Never to step in; not unless you were a trained professional or knew what you were doing in that situation.

Mum would never have to worry about it until I turned fourteen and the world became too much, but even then, she’d never know how one afternoon I nearly pitched myself off a roof. In the meantime, all she had to keep a watchful eye over were the growing scorch marks, blisters, bruises, abrasions, grazes –

_Kacchan_.

All Mum had to look for was Kacchan’s presence on my skin and on the burnt patches of my uniform. Nothing else, and nothing more. She hated it. I hated it. But for now, there was nothing we could really do. I’d endured isolation for far too long that at fourteen I could no longer bring myself to care. I’d whimper, flinch, stutter and try and bumble my way out of a volatile situation to little avail. Fighting just wouldn’t cut it, despite how fourteen-year-old me dreamt of heroism – dreamt of how I would finally rise up and be acknowledged for once. Fighting only led to more injuries; left me incapable of doing even the smallest of day to day things – when my body was so bruised and blistered and broken that clothing could set my skin on fire with irritation. Fighting could, and would, kill me.

The arranged playdates, homework sessions, and even socialising with Kacchan’s family soon stopped when it became apparent to my mother that the boy’s parents either couldn’t see their son’s true colours, or just didn’t care about his nature – didn’t know how they could improve on his deplorable attitude. It was a shame for my mother; she and Kacchan’s Mum had been close friends. Cutting all ties to protect me, if a small but heavily sacrificial gesture, was something my mother would willingly commit to if it kept me safe or provided some modicum of relief.

As for me, well, the Goldilocks Model continued to haunt my life.

My mother had what experts and snobs alike called a ‘mediocre’ Quirk; she could levitate and pull small objects towards her. Excellent for being around small children or as a housewife, but [not exactly Hero material unless she got creative.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15267204) Not that I’d like to have crossed her. My mother is lithe and fierce to this day, mediocre Quirk be damned. I would grow up to meet many people with Quirks that were too big for them to handle, and others who could get a handle on these massive stores of power; which, should in any event I had ended up with something similar, would no doubt have battered and broke my body in a way Kacchan never could. Either way, I would never experience a Quirk that was too big or too little – or one that was just right – so I didn’t see how this model of classification could ever apply to me. If anything, it was a method of excluding me from everything; and then it clicked.

Quirks are like the three bears. Goldilocks, was not a bear – not for a lack of trying. The tongue-scolding porridge, uncomfortable resting and seating areas, were all created with bears in mind. No mentions of normal humans though.


	3. MEDITATIONS ON DISCRIMINATION

* * *

**MEDITATIONS ON DISCRIMINATION**

* * *

 

 

Society is taught today that Quirks are nothing to be ashamed of.

That is an outright lie.

We are preached to about the confidence we should carry; we have grown to accept skin in all shades of the rainbow and extra limbs. Grown horns overnight? Welcome to the Quirk Community. Suddenly discovered your kneecaps double as blowtorches? Sure, there’s a job for you somewhere out there. The majority of the world’s population (disregarding the special 20%) have some form of deformity, adaptation, or stylistic modification after the age of five – with rare exceptions appearing in pre-adolescence or puberty as the body awakens parts of itself previously considered to be latent.

Body image is not an issue now. No one can tell if your thunder thighs or wimpy frame is a factor of health, genetics, or your Quirk these day, so why get so hung up on something as trivial as cellulite or stretchmarks? Quirks have done wonders in allowing people to accept bodily issues they considered to be ‘flaws’ of themselves; when eyes shooting laser beams, cloven feet, or fur is the norm, one gets fairly desensitised to oddities. It’s actually a delight to encounter someone with no obvious alternation, and it draws a lot of attention on the street because people have grown so used to looking past exteriors and have focused a lot on ability or personality.

This hasn’t always been the case though. Back when Quirks first began to appear frequently around the globe, there was an awful degree of prejudice against the newly gifted. Critics have estimated the emergence of Quirks to be around 19XX, but as a more subliminal attempt to integrate Quirked individuals into unaccepting society. We’re talking fairly mediocre Quirks – spoon bending, mediums, levitation, the sort of stuff useful in magic shows, that sort of trivial power. Gradually, as society became enamoured with superhumans and slowly grew tired of tearing the planet apart in battles for dominance, more ostentatious Quirks appeared. The first of these manifested in China. A shocked father checked on their newly born child, only to find them brightly glowing in their crib; the room illuminated and emancipating light through the curtains like it was daytime.

There have been other instances of Quirks appearing at birth or early infanthood – one distraught mother was blessed with an extremely loud, wailing baby; the Quirk amplifying the cries tenfold.[1] The fact is though, that the influx of power was something to be feared. Quirks were once considered abnormal; Quirked individuals were excluded from communities or hunted down for their differences. Humanity had always sought to exclude or extinguish sources or movements it found threatening, and those few with Quirks were no different.

However, who is to say that primordial Quirks did not exist? Not in the sense of spoon benders, empaths, or mediums, but in heightened physicality and aggression, unnatural appearances or compulsive charm; all of which are fairly unnoticeable compared to pseudo psychic power and flashy magic tricks. I was lucky to come across an ancient text in a back-alley second hand bookstore during my late high school years that had been out of print for some time. The back cover stated that it was a classic – and I assume it was one hundred and fifty years ago – but that it was also controversial in its own time. That was over three hundred years ago. You can see why these kinds of things easily go out of print, because without any mentions of archetypal Heroes, Villains or Quirks, there’s little to nothing in the pages to keep the modern reader engaged.

The more I read though of the ‘dirty’ skinned boy, a young woman who violently ‘gnashed’ her teeth together as she writhed in anger, and seemingly tangible spectral bodies of the long departed appearing on the landscape, the more I thought that perhaps it wasn’t just the author writing of something sensational but perhaps the etchings of Quirked individuals rising to the surface.[2] It would be nearly two hundred years before things finally came to a head – and All Might’s debut would solidify the Quirk as a heaven-sent blessing – but there were Quirks present even back then. They just happened to be interpreted as mental instability, demonic possession, and (this is my favourite) female hysteria.[3]

Even today, in a society were loving yourself is loving your Quirk (like it’s your favourite pair of shoes or a particularly flattering pair of skinny jeans – that fit _just right_ ), there is a minority who are shunned. For once, I am not referring to those such as myself – although that is a matter to cover later – but to those who do not receive a particularly useful or grand Quirk. The Quirk that often fits one’s personality may not be the most ethical. I encountered one individual in my youth, at a Cat Café actually, who had been handed the metaphorical short end of the stick. He spoke to me confidently of growing up ostracised for his innate ability, because the same snobs who would look down on my mother’s mediocre skill had created rules to conform to in regard to good or evil Quirks. Unfortunately, this young man’s Quirk was considered evil, and himself to be villainous purely for harbouring a propensity to potentially misuse his gift. He would never, he assured me, and was currently interning at a small Hero Agency – but the social stigma of his ‘villainous’ Quirk had doggedly persisted to follow him through childhood, adolescence, and the work place.

No one had stopped to think that perhaps this boy had been damaged by the unnecessarily cruel and degrading comments he’d grown up with; essentially labelling him as the scum of society for something completely out of his control instead of supporting his interests. He was ‘lucky’, he told me; the latte he’d ordered and taken a sip from had left a moustache of foam on his upper lip, and I found myself reeling – how could anyone consider this guy villainous if he’d quite happily sit there with foam around his mouth in the middle of a Cat Café? Yes, so, he was ‘lucky’ because someone had taken note of him in high school. Someone had overlooked his initial toxic personality – instilled within his childhood and perfected as a teenager, because the world had left a bitter taste in his mouth for most of his life – and decided ‘You have potential.’

I was glad for him, if a little envious. At the time, I wished someone could have done that for me. It wouldn’t be until I’d survived the torment of high school and university applications that I’d meet someone who cared (outside of my mother, of course.) He’s also the person who prompted me into adopting my cat, but that’s a different story altogether.

This all got me thinking though – I mean, adopting is a big thing, but so is equal rights. Who gets to decide what’s good or bad? Certainly not the government, that’s for sure. As of 2XXX, politicians are mainly just for show and only good for passing new laws on Heroism. Not them then? Are the Hero Elite the ones to establish social hierarchy? Where do the Quirkless few fit into this system?

Oh wait, we _don’t_.

* * *

[1] Please refer to Hazashi Yamada’s _Loud_ (Japan: Eiyū Press, 2XXX) for further detail.

[2] Please refer to Emily Bronte’s _Wuthering Heights_ (London: Penguin, 1864)

[3]  I can just picture someone of Mt. Lady or Ryuukyuu’s social stature being told to lie down in a dark room because their Quirk made them hysterical. I believe you’d have to be hysterical to even think about saying that, honestly, but apparently it was a common diagnosis given by physicians attending women way back when.


	4. HE WAS MY FRIEND (AND AN ANORCHIST?)

* * *

**HE WAS MY FRIEND (AND AN ANORCHIST?)**

* * *

‘You think you have lost your faith  
But you have not  
You have only misplaced your faith  
And you can't find it where it lies now  
Deep in your soul  
And the way to do that   
Is through the simple process of love  
Love yourself, forgive yourself  
You can't love and forgive other people  
If you don't first of all love and forgive yourself  
You have to realize that people are fallible beings  
They make mistakes, they have to be excused from these mistakes  
And allowed to continue on in this quest for a better life  
And for goodness  
So love yourself and then love other people  
Please forgive yourself  
Go on a journey of finding love and forgiveness  
Love people even though ...’

Opening Monologue to ‘Delilah’ – Florence + the Machine,

  _How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful_ (2015)

* * *

 

It was around the time of the last semester during my first year of University that I met Chiyosuke Nobuhiro. [1]

I’d been sat in one of my lectures on the back row. Normally I’d sit further forward, but I’d overslept and had to book it to the closest available seat. Since habit dictated I sit in or extremely close to where I usually did, my eyes strayed from the monologuing Professor to my favourite seat. It was an unspoken rule to claim a spot for your own and defend it throughout term time; if a battle for dominance resulted in you being displaced, it was well within the losing party’s right to direct death stares at the interloper’s back in the hopes of frightening them away and reclaiming the spot as yours for the following week.

Which was exactly what I did.

Chiyosuke – though I didn’t know him at the time – must have felt as though his back was aflame. While he turned in his seat to check where the discomfort originated from, he didn’t seem all that phased by my glare.

The bastard smiled and sent me a jaunty little wave.

A little shocked, I turned away. Suddenly my notes became very interesting – as did the Lecturer’s speech.[2]

It was at that point I noticed how the other students I usually sat with had distanced themselves from him – they’d shuffled up three or seats from their usual and tried desperately not to acknowledge the stranger. Chiyosuke didn’t seem bothered at all by this; I could almost imagine his shit-eating grin as he stretched his arms over his head and shuffled lower into his seat.

The girl sat closest to him – three seats away, actually – cringed.

_Does he smell or something?_ I remember thinking at the time, before shaking my head and deciding that his BO wasn’t my problem (because I was sat far, far away from it.) I caught a whiff of him while he made his exit. Just as I was packing my books into my backpack he flashed me that irritating grin once again, and he did, in fact, reek.

I wouldn’t say it was the start of a beautiful friendship, because it was anything but. Considering my track record with friends so far in life, I’d argue that I’d only really gathered ‘acquaintances’ and ‘colleagues’ so far. No friends. None after Kacchan decided I didn’t deserve them. Didn’t deserve him. I would say I should actually be thankful to him for that, because he taught me a great deal about how to cut toxic people out of one’s life and making mental trauma subservient to your whims. I’ll never forgive the bullying though.

Over the next couple of weeks, I’d take my usual seat in lectures and pray that Chiyosuke Nobuhiro didn’t show up. On the week where I was late once more, I found him sat in my seat. Again. I’d asked around and kept my eyes peeled, but he wasn’t an official student. There wasn’t a rule against just straight up walking into a lecture – and I’m pretty sure the Professor was so done with everything that he couldn’t muster up the energy to care anymore – but still, the guy had balls to just invite himself in.

Term was dragging to a close and trying to spot Chiyosuke Nobuhiro became an entertaining game for my class. The idea was to spy him when he appeared on campus, send your classmates into a panic by texting them a heads up, and then declaring yourself the winner for the week. The student with the most sightings would win a prize of some sort (probably alcohol which they were expected to share out with everyone, so we could all drown our sorrows after Finals Week.) Only, this week it backfired. On me.

This time no one had seen him vault over the campus walls and dart away into the warren of lecture halls, so I was going to sit in my usual seat. As I was unpacking my books, he idled by my desk. I held my breath.

“Hey,” he said. “Mind if I sit with you?”

I didn’t dare to open my mouth for fear of coughing, so smiled weekly in what I thought was an encouraging way. Chiyosuke plonked himself down in the closest seat to me possible.

“Say, you’re the kid with the awesome death glare, right?” I didn’t answer. “Man, I felt, like, lasers shooting into my back.”

I glanced quizzically at him.

He swivelled in his seat and leant forwards towards me; nose nearly touching my own. “It was awesome,” he crowed, and my eyes watered from the –

Wait. His breath was _minty_.

“I’m Chiyosuke,” he offered me a smile

“Izuku.”

“Cool.” Then – “I’m not actually a student here.”

I fiddled with my pen, idly scratching the date on top of the open page of my notepad. “We realised that.”

“Cool.” Silence fluttered throughout the room. The lecturer had arrived then.

Later – much later – Chiyosuke would admit to me that he was homeless. The side effect of growing up without a Quirk and a supportive family, being lost in the deficiency of Social Services, and being passed from pillar to post until he was nineteen – where he ended up living behind a dumpster. Apparently, he’d shown up on campus to sponge off of the year-round heating and air conditioning (and the free Wi-Fi), but had stayed because he found the classes generally interesting. All I could think was that if Mum hadn’t been as strong a woman as she was, if she’d upped and left me like her husband had deserted her, would I have been like Chiyosuke? Would I have the strength to carry on without the support I had now?

Probably not, because I’d only just managed to tear myself away from the edge of a very, very tall building when I was fourteen. Chiyosuke however, was still here and smiling. Granted, it was a very forced and minty smile, but it was a smile nonetheless.

“It’s real interesting, but I know me turning up isn’t fair to you all,” he’d mumbled, thanking me as I paid for his drink from the vending machine outside the lecture theatre. Personally, I think he was more enamoured with the social convention that was University, over the soul crushing monotony that was a political literature module. “Just… this wasn’t an option for me growing up, and I really wish it had been. I think I could have made a difference if I was all ‘learned’ and shit, y’know.”

“Who’s to say you can’t make a difference as you are?” I replied.

Chiyosuke merely gestured to his appearance. Several students gagged as they walked past, but I simply raised a questioning eyebrow. Being immersed in the smell for an hour, one grew acclimatised to it.  There were occasional wafts of mint, and I chalked it down to teeth being a priority over bodily cleanliness; Chiyosuke had happily clarified that teeth are instrumental in eating to survive, and well, your own stench is also instrumental in not getting eaten.

It dissuades the desperate alleyway tenants from taking a bite out of your leg, or so he said.

(I didn’t want to know the ins and outs of how he’d discovered this.)

Sitting beside him became a weekly thing for me, well, whenever he turned up. I knew that term was drawing to a close, and it saddened me to think that I wouldn’t see him over the summer. Chiyosuke was one of those people who grew on you. Like ivy vines, or weeds between the cracks in the sidewalk. You didn’t expect his company, and maybe you didn’t want it, but he sure as hell would do his best to blindside you and wheedle his way into your life. All without realising what he was doing and all the while flashing you that minty (infuriating) smile.

Going into my second year, I’d decided against living in a shared house. I was also vehemently against commuting in from Mum’s place – though I know if I’d have asked she’d have welcomed me back and would never allow me to leave my room ever again. I was instead going to rent a small apartment close to campus. It wasn’t the best, and it wasn’t exactly cheap, but it would fit two people easily if they could contort their bodies around one another.

During the penultimate lecture of the term, I had a little brainwave and shot an email to my new landlord.

A few weeks later, Chiyosuke and I moved into our new apartment together. I made it a point for the next two academic years to sneak him into my lectures or check books he wanted to read out from the library.

                          

* * *

 

I can’t remember when I realised it, because my memories of those days (even as young as I am) are wrapped in that cotton wool-like haze of nostalgia. I daren’t disrupt it, for fear of polluting the golden hue of so-called ‘better’ times, but the temptation was there.

Grief did that to you. It begins with humble intentions and ‘What if’s, but honestly, it’s a complete nightmare. If you let it cultivate – as I almost did – then it will strip everything positive out of your life and turn you into a husk. I wallowed – oh I did I wallow when Chiyosuke died – but I didn’t let it stop me.

Losing him would not halt the progress he’d made, because I knew he’d carry on if our roles had been switched. I just wish I didn’t have to bury my best friend before his time was supposed to end.

I’m not entirely sure when I realised it, but Chiysosuke Nobuhiro was a maniac who could rival All Might in terms of smiling. He smiled when he came ‘home’ for the first time when we moved in, smiled when people sneered at him in the street, smiled when I dragged him to a barber’s shop to get the matted mop he called ‘hair’ seen to. He. Didn’t. Stop. Smiling. _Ever._

It didn’t perturb him in the slightest when people would recognise him and grow agitated or spit at him when we went food shopping, because he’d respond with something like _‘_ Oh, don’t mind me. I’ve just started up an intense social shitstorm that has you questioning your whole life’s worth of decisions, but I still need to buy toilet paper the same as everyone.’

The guy was insane.

(I must have been too, because I helped him found the QLM Movement and continued it in his absence.)

Chiyosuke Nobuhiro was many things, possibly insane, desperate for purpose and recognition, kind, a little sweaty at times, but he certainly wasn’t the anarchist the media painted him to be. The guy didn’t have a nasty bone in his body. He just kept on (insanely) smiling, even though people would laugh and sneer and spit all over his ideals. And I had to live with it all, support him through it, and comfort him through the hard times and the good.

(I’ve always wondered where our friendship might have led, but I guess I’ll never know.)

What I couldn’t comprehend however, is that a society that is so open and accepting of all differences could be repulsed by those who were, well, ‘different’ to the Quirked populous. Isn’t that just counterproductive? I may even get a bit fancy and brandish the term ‘hypocritical’.

The QLM Movement wasn’t founded in a day. It was the product of two lives intertwining and agreeing that the vast difference of their upbringing was regrettable and driven by a need to make it better for an ostracised minority. We mainly conducted nonviolent rally’s, get togethers for the Quirkless community, and maintained a support network for those of minority who were struggling. Impromptu soup kitchens in back yards where all were welcome Quirk or not, clothing collections, banners and Pro-Quirkless merch, that kind of thing. It was harmless; only meant for gaining recognition and pressing society to acknowledge who it was failing.

It was such a shame that a peaceful protest we’d planned was overshadowed by a few prejudiced people instigating trouble with my housemate, a villain who was questionably one sandwich short of a picnic, and the incompetence of a notable Hero with a fire Quirk. The Movement went down in flames. Quite literally.

The QLM Movement would rise from the ashes when I regained my senses, but Chiyosuke would not.

At the time, his death was just another barrier for me that had been imposed by people with Quirks. The trouble was, you can’t go about your life pondering about whether the world is conspiring against you for no precise reason, or whether a past incarnation of yourself murdered priest in cold blood. You just have to keep on moving – keep pushing back so you can take a step forward.

 

* * *

 

 

[1] I must apologise in advance for the change in my writing style. As I was copying this down in my notebook at work, a minor Villain decided to try their hand at robbing the store. Plus, recalling memories of Chiyo is anything but painless; I spent a lot of time trying to rifle through the good and the bad times, and a lot of different nostalgic tangents sprung forth.

[2] It didn’t. Nothing can surpass it in terms of boredom.

 

* * *

**ABOUT THE AUTHOR**

I.M. Dekiru – though he prefers to go by Dekiru – may only be twenty-eight

years old, but he’s taking great strides for the future. He’s a Hero fanatic to this day,

despite his experiences early on in life. He enjoys an interesting Villain

fight when appropriate, hearty bowls of Katsudon, and long walks on the

 beach with his cat. Yes, you read that right. His cat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **MUSICAL INSPIRATION FOR THIS FIC**
> 
> 1\. ‘Heard Em’ Say’ – Kanye West and Adam Levine, ‘Late Registration’  
> 2\. ‘Peace Sign’ – Kenshi Yonezu, ‘Bootleg’  
> 3\. ‘PREACH’ - Lophile, 'PREACH'  
> 4\. ‘Pink Lemonade’ – James Bay, ‘Pink Lemonade’   
> 5\. ‘I Am the Resurrection’ – The Stone Roses, ‘The Stone Roses – 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition’  
> 6\. ‘Hotel California’ – The Eagles, ‘Hotel California – Remastered’   
> 7\. ‘THE DAY’ – Porno Graffiti, ‘Butterfly Effect'  
> 8\. ‘Somebody To Love’ – Jefferson Airplane, ‘Surrealistic Pillow’  
> 9\. ‘Hunger’ – Florence + the Machine, ‘High As Hope’  
> 10\. ‘Holding Out For a Hero’ – Bonnie Tyler, ‘Ravishing – The Best Of’  
> 11\. ‘Wouldn’t it Be Nice’ – The Beach Boys, 'Pet Sounds'  
> 12\. ‘Na Na Na’ – My Chemical Romance, ‘Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys'

**Author's Note:**

> Due to all the Star Wars cameos in the series, I decided to take a few liberties myself:
> 
> • "Beidā", as in "Darth Vader"  
> • "Ginga Teikoku", which is the Google Translate equivalent to 'Galactic Empire'  
> • "HaHa", which is a skewed translation/approximation of JaJa (Binks)


End file.
